Welcome to Group Text, a monthly column for readers and book clubs about the novels, memoirs and short-story collections that make you want to talk, ask questions and dwell in another world for a little bit longer.
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Just to be completely transparent: You are not in the hands of an expert on dystopian fiction. I read “The Hunger Games.” I read “The Handmaid’s Tale,” but only after watching the HBO series. I did not read the Divergent series, nor did I see the movie (although I drove a bunch of enthusiastic teenagers home from the theater). I prefer novels grounded in a semi-familiar world — which might be why I enjoyed POSTER GIRL (Morrow, 288 pp., $26.99), Veronica Roth’s latest novel for adults.
The book takes place in a future post-apocalyptic Seattle — one that hasn’t been altered by a hurricane, a flood or a pandemic, but by the greed and malfeasance of its former leaders, known as the Delegation. The “megalopolis,” as Roth calls it, is dusting itself off after a revolution that unseated a band of characters who enforced rules with the help of the Insight, a device lodged in the skulls of citizens. (Insertion involved a thick needle stuck in the corner of a newborn’s eye. When it comes to dystopian fiction, it helps to have a strong stomach.)
Enter Sonya Kantor, who was raised by Delegation die-hards and implanted with spyware from birth: “As a child, she asked it all the questions she might otherwise have asked a parent who didn’t know the answers. Why is the sky blue? How fast does the fastest person run? … The Insight walked through life with her.” Eventually it accompanied her to a photo shoot where she had her picture taken for a black-and-white Delegation poster printed with one of the regime’s slogans: “What’s Right Is Right.”
In the decade since the Delegation was defeated by the Triumvirate, Sonya has been imprisoned in the Aperture, an apartment complex surrounded by barbed wire where people associated with the bad guys must live out their days. Their Insights are still active, transmitting directives from the new government — for instance, “MANDATORY MEDICAL CHECK” will flash across their screen/vision, unbidden and demanding immediate attention — while the members of the general population have had their devices removed.
Sonya’s family and her betrothed, Aaron, have been killed by the Triumvirate. Her existence is a gray-scale landscape of chain smoking, scrounging for food and trying to make peace with her grim fate. Then she gets an offer she can’t refuse: to perform an act of service in exchange for her release from the Aperture. The Triumvirate wants her to locate a girl — an “illegal second child” — who was removed from her family’s home by the Delegation and “placed with upstanding members of the community who couldn’t have a child of their own.”
The task is as complicated as it sounds. Sonya’s detective work earns her a series of furloughs from the Aperture, but traveling farther afield means she’s recognized by strangers who loathe her. She has no idea whom she can trust. With the help of characters who run the gamut from memorable to stock, she begins to wrap her mind around the enormity of the Delegation’s meddling — and her own family’s role in the devastating aftermath. (Forgive me for lapsing into Movie Previewer Voice! It goes with the territory.)
At first glance, “Poster Girl” might not seem like an obvious book club pick, especially if your group is going for a tweedy “Let’s parse ‘Ulysses’” vibe. This is a fun, read-it-in-a-weekend novel, one that pairs well with Halloween candy, spiked cider and a smattering of neighborhood gossip. But when the time comes to hash out the details with your compatriots, you’ll find that there are plenty of heavy-bordering-on-frightening topics to consider — beginning with our own relationship with the devices we’ve all but Krazy Glued to our palms. Chances are, you’re looking at yours right now. How many times will you check it during your book club meeting? Who’s tracking your searches, purchases and texts? How will your privacy change as technology gets smarter but not necessarily wiser? These are conversations worth having, with “Poster Girl” as a cautionary tale.
And when you wake up the next morning to ads for winter boots recommended by a fellow club member, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Discussion Questions
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“Why carry something in your hand when you could carry it in your head, instead,” Roth writes of the Elicit, the precursor to the Insight. “If you spend all your time holding something, caring for it, feeling its warmth — it may as well be a part of your body, as integrated as an eye.” Discuss.
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How did this book affect your thinking about privacy and technology?
Suggested Reading
“Our Missing Hearts,” by Celeste Ng. This new novel from the author of “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Everything I Never Told You” also takes place in a nightmarish future — one where children have been removed from homes of supposed troublemakers, books are taken off shelves and librarians assume a new role in a dysfunctional (but also frighteningly imaginable) society.
“The Measure,” by Nikki Erlick. If you received a box containing a length of string that would indicate how long you have left to live, would you open it? In Erlick’s debut novel, every adult on the planet receives a special delivery and has to decide what to do with it. Our reviewer, Leni Zumas, wrote, “Despite its chilling premise, Erlick’s novel is an escape from — rather than a window into — our own terrifying reality.”
